VLC is a free Media Player program for Windows, Mac and Linux. It plays FLV and nearly every other format available. It’s a compact video player with ease of use but with the advanced capabilities that could have you reaching for the user manual.

What I love about this program is it’s effortless ability to play nearly any file – from the normal mpeg’s, wmv’s and DVD videos to the obscure mkv, vob and FLV files.

It’s pretty light weight at 18mb, taking just a minute to download and thankfully isn’t very resource intensive meaning I can watch videos on my more slower PC in the office.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a way to play flash video on your website then this is not for you. If you’re also looking for a FLV Plugin Codec for Windows Media Player, this isn’t the download for you – this is a stand alone player.

So if you’re looking for a free FLV media player then I can’t recommend anything else, this FLV player is a free download and will do the job. Once you’ve installed it and you’re playing your video files, come back here and leave a review below for other users.

Flowplayer is a video player for the World Wide Web. It allows users to embed video streams on their personal web pages. It is a free softwareproject with a GPL 3+ license. Unbranded versions without copyright notices and built-in support for personalized branding are available by commercial license. It can play flash video.

Some of the features include a high level of customization possibilities, JavaScript API, plug-in architecture and support for various streaming servers.

The Flowplayer is probably the quickest and easiest method I’ve used for putting streaming video on a website. In the past I’ve used paid solutions that have usually cost between $47 and $97. I found these to be buggy and ugly. Flowplayer is released under the GPL license meaning anyone can make changes and the best changes are often incorporated back in to the official release. This means with Flowplayer you’re keeping up with the fast moving changes in technology.

The Play FLV codec is not a stand-alone FLV Video Player but it does give your installation of Windows Media Player the ability to play FLV files by installing a codec.

The PlayFLV.com Plugin Codec is an installation package that enables Windows Media Player to play FLV (Flash Video) files.

Key features

• Plugin that enables Windows Media Player to playback FLV files
• Features all default functions, such as zooming, skipping and full screen view
• Creates file association: Double-click FLV files to play them in Windows Media Player
• Very lightweight plugin

Technical details

This program installs and registers FLVSplitter by Gabest. It binds FLV files to Windows Media Player, enabling playback of FLV files by double-clicking them. The installer prompts to download and install ffdshow, required for movies in Flash 7 file format. An uninstaller is included in the package.

Alternatives

• An offline standalone FLV player is available here.
• This program only installs the FLV playback component for Windows Media Player. You can also install a codec pack like K-lite, which not only installs the FLV component but also dozens of other video playback components.

PlayFLV is a project by Barend.nu and your download is made possible by PlayFLV.com the FLV Codec site.